Builder Profile: Mesa/Boogie

Every Player, Every Need
Although it might sound like hyperbole,
anyone who’s looked at the history of Mesa/Boogie still has to admit that it’s never rested
on its laurels. From its genesis facilitating
sustain for blues-rockers to its preeminence among headbangers to its more Fullerton-flavored
Lone Star designs to the 2010
introduction of the chimey-sounding
TransAtlantic series, Smith and Boogie
have always had their eyes to the future.
The latter series first served up the TA-15
as a means to help bedroom and small-club
players achieve great tone without having
to crank an amp to ear-splitting volume. As
Smith pointed out, “Given the economics
of business today, a lot of people needed a
real lightweight fly rig—something under
50 pounds that they can carry with them
and still get their tone.”

Though the TA-15 was inspired by the
classic Vox AC15, Mesa took the series
beyond that recipe both in terms of what
the TA-15 itself can do and in terms of what
that new TransAtlantic framework enabled
them to do afterward. “In the TransAtlantic,
we went beyond Vox in several ways,” Smith
says. “First, we gave you the two different
gain structures for the Vox channel, plus the
ability to switch the master. Secondly, we
wanted to give people something that was
several amps in one. Once you’ve committed
to these expenses of the cabinet, the speakers,
the chassis, and the transformers, building
more amps on that same platform is
really where the value packing comes from.”

Boogie’s new line of overdrive and distortion
pedals [reviewed in the January
2013 PG] further exemplify both the
company’s adventurous spirit and Smith’s
support for the ideas of his team members.
The stompboxes—the Tone-Burst, the Grid
Slammer, the Flux-Drive, and the Throttle
Box—were developed and designed over the
course of two years by engineers Dan Van
Riezen and Tommy Waugh. “They’re really
gratified to see just how readily they are
being accepted and all the accolades they’ve
received,” says Smith.

In Memoriam: Kurt Houser 1973-2013

Founder Randall Smith and the entire
Mesa/Boogie team asked to
pay tribute to longtime team member
Kurt Houser, who passed away
not long before this article went to
press. “Kurt was a truly passionate
family member and 21-year comrade
in tone. He applied his integrity,
creativity, and incredible attention to
detail across a wide range of departments—from quality control to sheet-metal
design to sourcing—with an
unwavering attitude toward perfection.
He accepted nothing less than
the absolute best for Mesa and its
customers. Kurt passed on February
21 at the age of 39, and is survived
by two children, Kenneth and Mackenzie.
His contributions to Mesa and
our products were invaluable and he
will be dearly missed.”

Meanwhile, bassists who’ve long heard
about the legendarily robust and gritty tones
of Mesa’s Bass 400+ tube bass heads will be
thrilled to hear that two new bass amps of
that ilk are in the works. “It’s been a long
and involved process,” says Smith. “The
Strategy draws its heritage from the Bass
400+, and the Prodigy is a much smaller
version. My thumbnail description of the
Strategy is that it’s half the size and half the
weight of an [Ampeg] SVT, but it’s half
again as powerful—450 all-tube watts vs. the
SVT’s 300 watts—but with twice the tone.
The Prodigy is smaller than the TA-30, but
packs a whopping 250 watts.” Though no
release date has been given, the company has
already lined up their first endorsee for the
new line—Sir Paul McCartney.

Boogie On!
Although Smith was cool enough to pull back
the curtain a bit and give us an idea what’s
next on the bass-amp front, what lies beyond
that for Mesa/Boogie is anyone’s guess. Given
his company’s history, though, it’s probably
safe to bet it’ll be innovative, impeccably
built, and chock-full of great tones. “We’ve
been asked by people, ‘Did you guys ever
think of making a limited-edition, premier,
super-signature model using all of the best
parts and everything?’ And I say, ‘Yeah, that is
what we do. In fact that’s all we do!’”

From the time he first picked up a copy of Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same as a teenager, Corbin Reiff has been obsessed with music and guitar in particular. Originally from Sacramento, CA, Corbin joined the U.S. Army after graduating High School and spent five years in uniform including one year overseas in Iraq in 2009. After getting out Corbin has spent the last few years as a working music writer in the Seattle area where he lives with his wife Jenna and his two dogs, Hendrix and Page.

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